"Water Margin" and "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" are both popular romance novels, and the content is also virtual and real, making it difficult to distinguish between true and false. Many people believe that if the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" is seven points of historical fact and three points of fiction, then "Water Margin" is only one point of historical fact, nine points of fiction. So, how many of the 108 good men in Liangshan Po in "Water Margin" are real?
"Water Margin" describes the story of the peasant uprising at the end of the Northern Song Dynasty, because the novel combines the real historical background, characters and events, coupled with the profound character image shaping, many people are false and real, mistakenly regard the storyline as real history.
In fact, most of the characters and contents in the Water Margin are fictional, of which only 36 exist in history, of which 108 are good men, according to the Ming Dynasty's "Chronicle of the Song Dynasty" at the end of the Hou Meng biography. These 36 people were the protagonists of the historical incident of "rampaging Heshuo" in February of the third year of The Song Huizong Xuanhe: "Huainan bandits from the Song River ran rampant in Heshuo with 36 people, and plundered ten counties, and the officers and troops did not dare to attack him." ”
Except for Song Jiang, the names of the remaining 35 people are not objectively and specifically recorded in the history books, and most of them are reprocessed according to folklore. According to the Ming Dynasty Lang Ying's Seven Revision Drafts, the names of these 36 people are: Song Jiang, Chao Gai, Wu Yong, Lu Junyi, Guan Sheng, Shi Jin, Chai Jin, Ruan Xiao'er, Ruan Xiaowu, Ruan Xiaoqi, Liu Tang, Zhang Qing, Yan Qing, Sun Li, Zhang Shun, Zhang Heng, Hu Yanqi, Li Jun, Hua Rong, Qin Ming, Li Kui, Lei Heng, Dai Zong, Suo Chao, Yang Zhi, Yang Xiong, Dong Ping, Xie Zhen, Xie Bao, Zhu Tong, Mu Heng, Shi Xiu, Xu Ning, Li Ying, Hua Monk (Lu Zhishen), and Wu Song.
But why is the number of good men in "Water Margin" 108?
On the one hand, in ancient times, the number 36 represents Tiangang, and the corresponding number of Tiangang is exactly 72, which adds up to 108, so that the novel looks more mysterious and layered; on the other hand, in order to attract readers and enhance the readability of the novel, on the basis of 36 actually existing characters, 72 people are fictionalized, so that we have the "Water Margin" that we can't get tired of today.
Another interesting point is that because "Water Margin" is so famous, many people mistakenly think that the peasants led by Song Jiang and others are very large and imposing, but historically, in the more than 300 peasant uprisings at the end of the Northern Song Dynasty, the scale of the Song Jiang uprising was not large.
According to the "History of The Song Dynasty", the trigger of the Song River uprising was that in order to solve the financial difficulties, the Song court nationalized all the 800-mile waters of Liangshan Po, and the people who went into the lake to fish, collect lotus roots, and so on were subject to heavy taxes according to the size of the vessels, and if there were violators of the prohibition, they were punished as thieves. At that time, the peasants and fishermen were very poor and could not afford to pay heavy taxes, so, under the leadership of Song Jiang and others, they took the risk and relied on the easy and difficult terrain of Liangshan Po to block the officers and soldiers who came to suppress them.
At first, Song Jiang and others remained at Liangshan Po until the first year of Emperor Xuanhe of Song Hui (1119) when he officially declared an uprising, and then left Liangshan Po and moved to the states of Qing, Qi, and Pu, and the government began to notice the existence of this rebel army, and ordered the appointment of Zhang Shuye as the governor of Haizhou, against Song Jiang, and finally Song Jiang and others surrendered and were captured. But are Song Jiang and others alive? Is it dead? There is no longer any evidence.